It Occurs To Me: The real concerns of ordinary people

Mmmm? One thing that struck me about the Sunday Independent poll which showed that 72% of people believe that asylum seekers and refugees should be housed in more affluent areas was this: what percentage of the 72% are from affluent areas?
The poll also found that 46% of people think the media is “biased in favour of refugees” and against local people’s concerns.

That, in my view, is very significant. On a personal level, I find the attacks on gardaí and the burnings etc absolutely abhorrent but there is something about Roderick O’Gorman and his Department of Integration which gives the impression of not giving a damn about the sensibilities of those in small rural communities with serious lack of resources.

Decent people are caught in a bind…if they dare ask relevant questions about the relocation of hundreds to a disused hotel in their area, the reaction often is: “Oh, that’s racist!” No, it most certainly is not. O’Gorman and co are adding fuel to the fire of our own crypto-Nazis, and the sooner the government get to grips with the voices of concerned citizens, the less credibility an emboldened far-right will have.

‘Roderick O’Gorman and co are adding fuel to the fire of our own crypto-Nazis’

Look at the riots in Belfast. Irish tricolours and placards reading “Coolock Says No” beside loyalist flags. The Indo headline said it all: “Far right from Dublin ‘received heroes’ welcome’ as they spent night drinking with UDA after anti-immigrant protest in Belfast.” Pathetic in the extreme.

Last week, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the aforementioned Roderic O’Gorman, has announced the publication of the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy II (NTRIS II) 2024-2028. NTRIS II sets out the vision for “A safe, fair and inclusive Ireland where Travellers and Roma are supported to lead inclusive, healthy and fulfilling lives.”

Speaking at the launch of the Strategy, Minister O’Gorman said: “I am delighted to launch the successor National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy 2024 – 2028 and the first 2-year Action Plan today, the end product of many months of work on the part of the Traveller and Roma representatives, Government Departments and State Agencies.
NTRIS II will address the disadvantage, discrimination and inequalities faced by Travellers and Roma across a wide range of indicators, including in terms of health, education, employment and accommodation.”

All very commendable, but also - as is the case with the refugee problem - destined to anger many people, as a crucial aspect of traveller culture is being ignored by politicians and a significant portion of the media.

The increasingly violent feuding between traveller families which is having a huge impact on the lives of many law-abiding families. Last Sunday, in one large midlands town, many loved ones avoided attending Cemetery Sunday because a feud meant that, once again, heavily armed Garda units had to attend outside and inside the local graveyard. In the past the police have found baseball bats, slash hooks etc in the boots of cars on said Sundays…why, oh why, would you allegedly attend a Christian commemoration armed to the teeth with weapons and, to add irony, large bunches of flowers?

Going for gold

What a wonderful couple of weeks for Irish sport! In Paris, the true Irish tricolour has been reclaimed by real Irish patriots and our anthem makes us feel good again. The Olympics aside, and they’ve been a joy, the women’s Junior and Intermediate All-Ireland titles for neighbours Fermanagh and Leitrim respectively, have given the north-west a great lift. Supporters from Garrison and Kiltyclogher (only 7miles apart) cheered on both teams and I’m sure that applied in greater Fermanagh, Leitrim, and indeed Donegal.

Marlin’s Swimming Club in Ballyshannon is naturally delighted that Mona McSharry is one of their great successes, having joined them from Grange at 8 years old. There is no 50-metre pool in the province of Connacht. Swimming pools in Ireland that conform to the Olympic standard are University of Limerick, Castletroy, National Aquatic Centre, Abbotstown, Dublin, and University College Dublin, Belfield, also Dublin.

Many politicians are basking in our Olympians’ triumph…let’s see if they are as enthusiastic about allocating some millions to increase the number of 50-meter pools for prospects such as Mona and others.

No RTÉ coverage in North

On the downside, the following criticism was written by well-known Derry-based author and journalist, Darach MacDonald: “This certainly ranks as one of the worst Olympics ever, as far as viewers like me in Northern Ireland are concerned. Despite the heroic performances of local athletes and gold medal winners Daniel Wiffen, Rhys McClenaghan and others, our viewing is largely restricted to brief reports on the BBC Newsline TV bulletins.

That is because RTÉ’s coverage and all its celebratory commentary is restricted by licence to the 26 counties of the Republic.
So we are geographically excluded from the national enjoyment of Team Ireland's success. Not only that, but I cannot get the RTÉ TV News while the games last (see screen grab), because I might be exposed to Olympics coverage.

Northern Ireland, meanwhile, with more than 30 members of Team Ireland, is restricted by licence to BBC coverage. Naturally, it focuses primarily on Team GB (despite repeated assurances that this includes Northern Ireland's six Team GB members), and the jingoistic commentary grates, rather than delights.

I sincerely hope the International Olympic Committee will have caught up with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and its provisions for national identity, as well as the all-Ireland structure of sporting organisations (except soccer,) by the time the 2028 Summer Games roll around.”

Fact stranger than fiction?

I’m a huge fan of Greg Iles, author of the 2300-page Natchez Burning trilogy and his riveting latest, Southern Man, which is nearly a thousand pages long. His thrillers explore the racism that has long ruled the South and is currently being exploited by Trump and Vance.

The chief protagonist is one Penn Cage, former prosecutor and now Mayor of Natchez. When his father, a beloved local doctor, is charged with murdering his former nurse — who was his long-ago lover — and goes on the run, Cage seeks the truth, finding links to 1960s lynchings by a vicious KKK offshoot and to contemporary corruption and racism.

In desperation, Cage has to go outside the law to destroy the criminals; when his fiancée and others are murdered along the way.
Iles wrote Southern Man before JD Vance became Trump’s VP choice, but the main ‘bad boy’ is like a carbon copy.

What makes Iles so fascinating, is how the book’s narrative accurately portrays the horror that is Trumpian politics. Penn Cage is baffled: “I watched in disbelief as businessmen voted for a repeat bankrupt, labourers for a boss infamous for stiffing his workers, evangelicals for a serial adulterer, women for an admitted sexual assaulter, patriots for a draft dodger who would sell his country’s secrets for trivial gain, educated men for an ignoramus. But they did so with fierce gladness in their hearts. Because what their chosen one had done was open Pandora’s box—yes, the old one, filled with the ancient calamities of race hatred and rage and cruelty and bloodlust and infinite greed—and tell them that these things were the remedy for all their grievances, that all their anger was justified, and most important: None of what ailed them was their own fault—or ever had been.”

Meanwhile, his friend and fellow fighter against racism ponders: “I’ve realized that America had declined to the point that we were willing to put a complete idiot in the White House. A con man with almost no objective qualifications for the office. Trump had obviously racist beliefs, criminal tendencies, serious problems with women, repeated business failures, no ethics whatsoever, no conscience, no remorse. He even despised the military. Yet white America, in its panic, wrapped their arms around the guy and rode him all the way into Washington. Even the evangelicals went with him. And why? Because he personified all their secret hopes and fears and prejudices. He gave them permission to be their real selves. Their worst selves. In essence, he was a living ‘F… you’ to everyone who ever made a rube feel stupid, or small, less than the next guy. He still is. He’s the white OJ Simpson, Penn. His supporters know he’s guilty—of all of it—but they don’t give a shit. That’s not the point for them. Anyway, the myth of my grade-school years was finally true: anybody could become president! Anybody with sufficient fame, and the willingness to say and do anything necessary to win, that is.”

These reflections are in a work of fiction…or are they? Read Greg Iles…nobody gets under the white underbelly of the US like he does.